Madison County Transit prepares to go defunct from budget cuts

WAMPSVILLE -- Over the last three years, Madison County Transit System has been investing in ways to better assist residents. Now, with proposed budget cuts that will eliminate the service mid-year, that plan has changed, Planning Director Scott Ingmire said.

Faced with debilitating mandate costs from the state, Madison County officials say they're forced to make tough budget decision for next year, decisions they say the state won't make itself.

With a $105 million budget for 2013 and a property tax increase below the mandated cap, several county services are taking a big hit, including the transit system.

The transportation service cost the county $157,964 to run last year. Next year's proposed budget will allocate only $53,631 to run the service through May, cutting almost $75,000.

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Ingmire credited an ineptness in the efficiency of state government for the county's inability to provide services.

In a letter to the Madison Transit System Steering Committee advising them of the budget cut, Ingmire wrote, "MTS has improved markedly over the past three years and it has now become another casualty of the state's inability to take control of its own financial house and make meaningful cuts to state mandated programs. Despite what has been touted by the state in the media, the state's cuts have provided almost imperceptible relief to counties for 2013. The county has no place else to pass along its budget woes than to the taxpayers, and in this economy, it is unwilling to cause residents any additional hardship from a significant tax increase. The only answer is to cut, and this time it is unfortunate that our residents will most definitely feel the impacts."

Although the number of people using the service has decreased in recent years, Ingmire said they've seen a steady growth in ridership since the onset of changes at the beginning of the year. An average of 1,162 people utilized the bus each month since January.

The transit system, originally conceived in the mid-80s, has been the focus of change over the last three years. The county planning department collaborated and adopted a federally-mandated coordinated transit plan, in the works since 2006, which examined all available and potential transportation resources along with establishing the county's transportation needs. The plan is required to be in place in order to receive grant funding.

The county's planning department also revamped the county transit's schedule and routes in an effort to make it more user-friendly. Ingmire estimated the amount of money invested in the effort to rejuvenate the service in the last three years to be nearly $68,000 in employee time.

In 2012, the county received a $1 million American Reinvestment and Recovery Act grant to completely fund the purchase of new buses. The county used about half of that with the acquisition of 10 buses. Because they were purchased using 100 percent of federal funding, Ingmire said the county will be obligated to either sell the buses and return the profits or turn the buses over to another transportation system in need of new ones once the county's service goes defunct. The county will not be able to keep the proceeds from any sales, he said.

The changes the planning department has achieved in the last several years to rejuvenate the transit service has been part of a long-term plan to coordinate transportation across the county. The "bigger picture" was consolidated services with agencies like the ARC and others who also provide transportation, to work towards lowering costs for all agencies by sharing routes and work load, Ingmire said.

"The long term strategy was to continue to provide public transportation while reducing the load on the transit and the ARC," Ingmire said. "Our intention was to keep the service running. The budget impact is not something we planned for. I guess we're planning for it now."

Ingmire estimated the majority of those who utilize the county's service are traveling to doctor's appointments, to go shopping or to get to and from work. Currently, there are no other services in the county that provide a similar service.

"I don't know what the fall back is," he said.

Taxis are likely too expensive for people to use the same way they did the transit system and while some may have chose to ride the bus occasionally out of convenience, Ingmire said some rely on it as their only mode of transportation.

Because the service will still run until May, Ingmire hopes riders will have enough time to plan accordingly.

The Madison County Board of Supervisors will hold two public hearings on next year's proposed budget Nov. 27 at 9:50 a.m. and 7 p.m.